Carolyn Bertozzi
Facts
© Nobel Prize Outreach. Photo: Stefan Bladh
Carolyn R. Bertozzi
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2022
Born: 10 October 1966, Boston, MA, USA
Affiliation at the time of the award: Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA
Prize motivation: “for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry”
Prize share: 1/3
Work
Chemists strive to build increasingly complicated molecules. For a long time, this has been very time consuming and expensive. Click chemistry means that molecular building blocks snap together quickly and efficiently. Around 2000, Carolyn Bertozzi started utilising click chemistry in living organisms. She developed bioorthogonal reactions which take place inside living organisms without disrupting the normal chemistry of the cell. These reactions are now used to explore cells, track biological processes, and improve the targeting of cancer pharmaceuticals.
Women who changed science
Experiencing ridicule and exclusion as a student in the 1980s did not stop Carolyn Bertozzi from pursuing her passion – in fact, it spurred her to build an inclusive culture in her own lab. Bertozzi’s Nobel Prize-awarded discovery of bioorthogonal reactions are now used globally to explore cells, track biological processes and improve the targeting of cancer medicines. Read her story.
Carolyn Bertozzi as a young professor at UC Berkeley.
Photo: Courtesy College of Chemistry at UC Berkeley
